Phycronutrients!

This summer Kory and I have taken up a new interest in watching food and health documentaries. We've watched quite a few this summer; some we liked more than others. The most recent one we watched was "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead". It's about a guy from Australia who goes on a 60 day road trip of the US while doing a 60 day juice cleanse as an attempt to heal an autoimmune disease he has by consuming solely fruits and vegetables. It is a great documentary and I highly recommend it! (It's on Netflix!)

Kory and I were so inspired by this documentary that we decided to give the juicing thing a try. Since we are just starting out with juicing we didn't want to spend a ton of money on one, though we know you get what you pay for. But I've learned a thing or too about getting great deals when shopping! We found one that had high ratings and was reasonably priced at Target. However, I found that it was like $20 cheaper online than at the actual store! (The woes of living in Hawai'i). We tried to order it online using ebates (why not get some cash back on it!) and then just pick it up at the store later that day (and save on shipping!). Unfortunately, it was out of stock online, and even though we wanted to just do a store pick up, it wouldn't let us order it on online. I was pretty ticked off. The good news is that Target does price matching! So we just went back to Target, grabbed the juicer, took it to customer service and said we wanted the online price. Bada bing bada boom! We just got ourselves a high quality juicer for under $50!

Okay, enough of my tangent on bargain shopping...

We love our juicer! We tried to do just juice for a couple days. It was really hard. For now we are just using it to replace a meal instead of all of our meals. Like for breakfast today! My favorite is apple, carrot, and beet. It is SO good! I also found that juices with beet were also the most filling!

Kory's go to now is apple, carrot, and celery. 

We tried using cucumber in our juices, but found it to be really overpowering. Kory even tried bell pepper and onion in his one time. (Meh!) He is much braver and much more experimental than me!

I have to make one more tangent here... We are composting the fibers left over from juicing, and yesterday I found this little guy IN the compost box. 

So among other things I have now added placing a lid on the compost box to my to do list today. 

Juicing can get expensive, which is why we got our produce at the farmers market and Costco. (Apples, carrots, celery are all dirt cheap at Costco!) And after seeing how costly juicing is on a first hand basis it makes us all the more glad that we have our JuicePLus+. It's so much cheaper than juicing all the time and we still get all our phytonutrients and micronutrients. Or as Kory has dubbed them: phycronutrients!

Time for Thai!

The one thing we are not short on here in Kona is Thai food restaurants. They remind me of taquerias back in California... They're everywhere. For me though Thai food was always the last choice when it came to eating out. In the past 7 years while living here I think I've only eaten it once. However, Thai food is one of my husband's favorites, and over the past year of being married to him it has slowly become a favorite of mine too.

I have fallen in love with the spicy, peanuty, coconuty flavors of their curries. And my husband loves pad thai! So, we decided to see if we could make it ourselves! For this we turned to Pinterest (of course). Our criteria was EASY. Neither one of us like to hassle with tons of ingredients. The recipe we used can be found here: Quick and Easy Vegan Pad Thai

The noodles for pad thai are the best! We just soaked them in hot, boiling water for about 15 minutes. 

Then we sautéed up some garlic and tofu. My husband likes his tofu in tiny bite size pieces, so chopping that up was his job. 

He also helped squeeze the limes for the sauce. Add in some peanut butter, soy sauce and sriracha and you've got a mighty fine pad thai sauce!

Mix it all together in a skillet and you've get some quick and easy pad thai! I garnished mine with a little green onion, cilantro, and chopped peanuts. 

This recipe made so much that we have plenty for dinner tomorrow too! Homemade thai leftovers, mmm mmm! This recipe was so easy and so quick we will definitely be making it again soon. Next on the list... Panang Curry!!!!

Classroom "Essentials"

Usually at the end of summer, about a week before I have to return back to work, I begin to have dreams about school: setting up the classroom, first day of school, etc. I've always believed it is my subconscious's way of preparing me for the reality of work and to soften the blow of summer break coming to a halt.

However, this year I have been having school related dreams during the first week of summer vacation. What is up with that! Maybe it's the anticipation of moving to a new grade level as well as a new classroom next year, I don't know. So, after awaking this morning from a dream about desk arrangements, I decided to put this school focused brain activity to work...

This year I learned about an amazing site called PledgeCents. If you are a teacher you have probably heard of the grant writing site called DonorsChoose. PledgeCents is just like that... but even better! Unlike DonorsChoose you are not restricted to fundraising for items from a limited number of companies. They also don't tack on extra fees of shipping, handling, and donations to their site. With PledgeCents you get the money sent you to use as you need - potentially putting that money in to your local economy. This morning I created a cause on PledgeCents in the hopes of raising funds to purchase a diffuser and essential oils in my classroom. Essential oils can boost energy in the afternoon, help awaken in the morning, and even help foster social interactions amongst students. 

If you are interested in essential oils in the classroom or PledgeCents, be sure to check out the video and link below!

 

PledgeCents - Classroom "Essentials"

And maybe now I have gotten this idea out of my head and in to action I can start to enjoy summer with some school-free sleep!

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

I learned how to make the most AMAZING dessert this weekend! Molten Chocolate Lava Cake. Yummy!

First you need a bunch of chocolate and a TON of butter. The store was out of Bakers bittersweet chocolate, so I got Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips. I used about a 1 1/4 cup of the chips, 2 oz of semi-sweet chocolate and 1 1/2 cup of butter. So much butter!

Then I microwaved it for 90 seconds (30 seconds first followed by 60 more seconds). Stirred it all together and made the most decadent liquid substance ever!

Then I added my dry ingredients and a bunch of eggs. The recipe calls for  3 eggs AND 3 eggs yolks. Usually, when a recipe calls for egg whites or egg yolks I give it a pass... too much work! But for this, it seemed worth it! Finally, I placed the mix in 8 ramekins. 

I then placed them in the fridge to save or later... You have to eat them right out of the oven!

When it came time to eat them I placed them in the oven for 12 short minutes. I then had delicious, gooey, yummy lava cakes! 

We ate them right away, and I wasn't able to get a picture. This was one of the left overs so it is a little deflated. 

But top it off with some ice cream and no one will ever know!

Below is the link to the recipe that I used. It is so simple and so easy and SO delicious! It is a real crowd pleaser!

http://www.glorioustreats.com/2013/02/chocolate-molten-lava-cakes.html

Star Wars Party

If you didn't know already, Monday, May 4th was Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!) 

My husband and I thought it would be fun to throw a Star Wars party. 

To begin, we dressed our dogs up in their Star Wars costumes from Halloween. Our dogs, Boba and Chewy, even have Star Wars names! (Boba Fett; Chewbacca)

Aren't they adorable!

My husband wanted to add his own special touches to the party so he used a pair of chopsticks to create a light saber for our Dartg Vader clock. 

In addition to watching the original Star Wars - Episode IV A New Hope, we had our friends bring Star Wars themed foods. One our friends is a chocolatier and made these awesome Han Solo chocolates!

His wife made these delicious Obi-wan Kabobies. 

Someone else brought meat-on-meat, so we named Jar Jar Links. 

We got tequila lime chicken wings from Costco - Chi-X-en Wing Fighters :)

Finally, dessert. My friend made these cute and delicious tie fighter s'mores. 

She also brought the coolest bottle of wine ever... 

All in all it was a terrific night of awesome food, great friends, and a totally epic movie.